Thick White Sauce

This is the thickest of the standard white sauce proportions — a formula rather than a method, given in a chapter where the technique is assumed. It is the binding paste used for croquettes and cutlets, not a pouring sauce.

• The method the list assumesMelt the fat, stir in the flour and cook the paste a minute or two without browning, then add the milk. Whether you add it all at once and whisk or a little at a time matters less than cooking the flour first; raw flour gives the sauce a pasty taste that no amount of simmering later will remove.
• What "fat" means hereButter, in practice, though the list does not say so. Match the fat to what the sauce will bind — butter for fish or chicken, drippings for a meat croquette.
• Equal fat and flourA roux wants roughly as much fat as flour by volume. The list as printed gives 1 to 5 tablespoons of fat against 4 to 5 of flour; at the low end the fat is short, and dry flour clumps rather than disperses.
• How thick is thickFour to five tablespoons of flour to one cup of milk sets almost solid when cold — stiff enough to cut into squares. Thin white sauce is about 1 tablespoon flour per cup, medium about 2. This proportion is for mixtures that must hold their shape when shaped and fried.
• Cook it outOnce it thickens, keep it over low heat, stirring, for two or three minutes more. A heavy flour paste scorches on the bottom of a thin pan; a heavy saucepan or a double boiler is worth using.
• YieldAbout one cup — enough to bind roughly two cups of chopped cooked fish, chicken or vegetables into a croquette mixture. Chill the mixture thoroughly before shaping.
• SeasoningAn eighth teaspoon of pepper in one cup is assertive by modern standards if you are using freshly ground black pepper; white pepper is the likelier reading for a white sauce, though the list does not specify. Salt to taste at the end, since the filling it binds may already be seasoned.